Awakening Veronica [Divine Creek Ranch 17] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Heather Rainier

  Speaking of fantasies…

  He laid a trail of kisses to her throat and whispered, “Nika, I have you right where I want you. You can’t get away from what I’m about to give you. Mine to play with. Mine to take.” He continued thrusting in and out just that tiny bit, delighting in the needy sounds she was making. She spread her legs even wider for him, obviously trying to take him deeper as she wiggled and squirmed against him. Her arms were still outstretched on the bed, her hands grasping handfuls of the bedding. Her snug walls fluttered around the head of his cock, enticing him. He reached down to finger her clit and found it slippery and swollen. Stroking it made her writhe beneath him until she finally slid her arms around his shoulders and stroked his back.

  “Please, Hank,” she whispered as she lifted her head and looked up at him. “I want you.”

  The desire in her voice, her siren’s call, finally surpassed his ability to resist, and he laid his lips against hers as he gave her a solid thrust, careful not to force his cock too hard inside her at once. She moaned and gasped as she wiggled against him, her voice taking on a keening sound. “You’re so big.”

  “Hold still, Nika. Let me do the work. Hold still and relax. Look at me.”

  She obeyed and he could see the turmoil swirling in her brown eyes as he moved back and forth taking more with each stroke. “Oh…oh, Hank, I’m coming! I can’t stop!” she cried out as she tightened her arms around him and held on, digging her fingernails into his back. She writhed beneath him, her hot little cunt squeezing and stroking him, taking more of him as she arched against him, growing hotter and more slippery by the second.

  He increased the intensity of his thrusts as she came back to earth and kept stroking her clit, intent on taking her with him as he came.

  “I could slide inside you and stay for hours, Nika. You feel so good, so tight and wet.”

  His control was nearing the snapping point and all he wanted was to go deep and hard, over and over, inside her, to revel in her sweet warmth until he fell asleep.

  “Hank! Oh, Hank, I’m coming again! Oh yes!” He leaned into her torso a bit, pinioning her and pulling the bindings around her ankles taut, increasing the feeling of helplessness until her eyes flashed open, unfocused and ecstatic, and she screamed in pleasure. Her tugging, clenching contractions on his cock finally severed his grasp on self-control.

  Her cries grew louder as he pinned her to the bed and fucked her until every inch of his thick cock was planted deep inside her. His cum spurted in hot jets and his balls felt like they imploded from the pressure.

  “Nika! Yes!”

  Her panting mingled with his as they tried to catch their breath. He chuckled when he lifted his chest off of her so she could breathe and she lifted up with him because she was still holding on so tightly. Travis nodded at him and tugged the tail of the simple knot he’d used to restrain her at each ankle and her legs automatically wrapped around his waist.

  “You okay, Nika?” he asked as he rolled, taking her with him, his pulsing cock still deep inside her. He wished the condoms weren’t necessary so he could stay inside her all night. To wake up with her during the night, his dick once again hard inside her, and to fuck her some more.

  “Don’t leave yet. Please,” she murmured against his chest, her voice soft and sleepy. She sounded so dazed and satisfied and he looked over her shoulder at Travis and caught his nod and smile. She was one of a kind.

  Travis stroked her back, using a light, ticklish stroke, judging by her soft shudders of delight and the occasional moan or giggle. She reacted to his touch with gentle squeezes around his cock as well and he knew he needed to pull out before she succeeded in making him hard again. She wasn’t used to his size yet and her body needed a rest before she took him again.

  “How long can you stay?”

  Travis caught his eyes and Hank said, “I have to work in the morning but Travis is on vacation.”

  Travis said, “I can make breakfast for you if you’d like, Nika.”

  “’Kay,” she mumbled. “Hank?”

  Hank kissed her forehead as he slowly slid his already semierect cock from her and said, “I can stay but I’ll have to leave pretty early.”

  “I understand. I have to get up in a minute and get some writing done so I can say good-bye to you when you go. Right now I’m gonna rest my eyes for a minute.”

  Both men chuckled as she drifted off, softly mumbling to herself about what she needed to do. Concerned for her, he gently rolled her to her back, and before he covered her up, he checked her pussy. He’d tried his best to be careful but she was pink and swollen, and definitely going to be sore in the morning. She moaned sexily when Hank caressed her pussy lips and her clit, and droplets of her cum seeped from her opening onto his fingers. Travis echoed the rumble in his chest as Hank slid his fingers over his tongue and tasted her sweet honey again.

  Hank smiled at Travis in sympathy, noting that he was granite hard again simply from watching Hank check her. Hank chuckled softly and pointed at his rapidly enlarging dick. “You’re on your own there, Fishcop.”

  Travis flipped him the bird and grinned as he arranged a pillow and got comfortable with her while Hank went in the bathroom to ditch the condom. He stopped and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror.

  He saw this same face every morning when he shaved. Saw the silver that was rapidly gaining real estate at his temples, the most obvious sign that he was no longer a young buck in his prime. But what he saw in the gray eyes staring back at him got his attention. A fire burned there he hadn’t seen in a while. He might have snow on the roof before long but the fire in the furnace was burning bright as ever.

  * * * *

  Travis got up when Hank did and put on a pot of coffee for the two of them. As he was sitting at the table with him while they waited for the coffee to finish brewing, Travis asked, “Sleep much?”

  “Like the dead. It was nice having her cuddled up between us.”

  That was the thought ricocheting around in Travis’s head during the night. He was a light sleeper and he’d been aware of both of them in the bed with him, but especially Veronica. He’d had a hard time not reaching out and touching her to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He’d contented himself with burying his nose in her hair so he could breathe her in. “I could get used to sleeping with her every night.”

  Hank ran his fingers through his hair and smiled. “Me, too. She’s really something.”

  “I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t think I want her to go back to Montana either.”

  “That’s not up to us.”

  “I know. I also don’t want her to wake up one morning and think she’s bitten off more than she can chew with us and wind up hightailing it out of here.”

  Hank nodded. “Seems like we all have irons in the fire that need tending. See what comes of your meeting later this week. I have a decision to make about running for another term. Let’s take it one day at a time and not push too hard. At least she’s staying for a bit longer.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad Grandma Kate is, too. She’s a character. If she stays, Veronica is more likely to stay.”

  “True,” Hank murmured as he got up and poured a mug of coffee for each of them and returned to the table. “After hearing what she told us last night, I’m inclined to think that family doesn’t mean the same thing to the Montana Benedicts as it does to the Lusty Benedicts. I can’t picture any of the men I’ve met who are from Lusty tolerating that kind of nonsense in their families. Just so you know, I’m going to sit down with Ace and Kemp at lunch today about those online chats.”

  Both he and Hank had attended the one she’d been a guest at. He was in awe of her ability to keep up with all their enthusiastic questions and the way she handled herself when a few less than friendly “readers” had shown up. They hadn’t attacked her outright but it seemed clear to him and Hank that their purpose in attending had been to create a little chaos in the chat room, filling it with unrelated chatter and re
peatedly getting Veronica off subject. What’d pissed him off most were the personal questions. Veronica had handled it professionally, with a sense of humor, doing her best to be kind to all the attendees, but he knew that it had been stressful for her. It’d been hard to keep his mouth shut about the chat since she didn’t know they had planned to check it out. He didn’t want her to be self-conscious about interacting with her fans or distracted.

  “You think that jackass, BookAddictedWhore, has some kind of agenda? Two or three of the others seemed to follow her lead—assuming it’s really a woman.”

  Hank grimaced and shook his head. “I wish I had the resources to turn this over to the department, but the funds just aren’t there for an investigation that could lead nowhere. Ace and Kemp, and Duke and Gage, can work their voodoo faster anyway. I also need to show them that card Kate brought home with her from the coffee shop. Tabitha Lester is going to get herself into a mess if she’s not careful with the blogging and website, and those meetings.”

  “Yeah, people have a right to express their opinions but she needs to do some research on slander and libel.”

  Hank sipped his coffee as they talked quietly about the day’s agenda.

  A little later, Travis followed him back to the bedroom and stood there watching her sleep for a minute. She’d intended to get up and spend a few hours writing while they slept but she’d fallen deeply asleep between them. That was fine by him.

  Hank went to the side of the bed she’d scooted over to, with her arms wrapped around the pillow he’d slept on, and kissed her on her forehead. He whispered to her and she smiled and whispered back and kept right on sleeping. Judging by his expression as he turned away, this was a morning he’d prefer to stay in with them, but duty called.

  Travis sat on the front porch, enjoying the brisk morning air, and had just walked back in the house for a coffee refill when Veronica’s phone started ringing on her work desk. He grabbed it off the table and was trying to figure out how to mute it so it wouldn’t disturb her sleep when he accidentally hit the wrong key and answered it instead. He could hear a male voice and cursed at himself as he put it to his ear and quietly said, “Hello?”

  There was a long pause and a deep voice on the other end said, “This is Cord Benedict. Is Veronica available?”

  Thinking this might be a golden opportunity, Travis stepped out onto the front porch with his fresh cup of coffee and said, “She’s not available at the moment.”

  “Bullshit. She’s always awake at this time. Who is this?”

  Travis could hear another male voice in the background before he said, “My name is Travis McDaniel, Cord. Veronica has mentioned you and your brother to us.”

  “Us? Us who?”

  Fuck!

  “The us I’m referring to is me and the Divine County Sheriff, Hank Stinson.”

  “What the fuck? Is she in jail? Holy shit, Jackson, call Henry! We’ve got to get to Divine. Veronica—”

  Travis cut him off. “She is not in any trouble. We’re friends.”

  Cord scoffed. “Friends who have access to her phone while she is sleeping at a time when she is usually wide awake. How did you meet?”

  “Well, I knew her about eleven years ago but we were reintroduced through Grace Warner when Veronica and your Grandma Kate came to a wedding we attended.”

  “Wait. You call her Grandma Kate?”

  “She told us we should when we talked with her at the reception.”

  Cord’s deep laughter rumbled over the phone and he repeated what Travis had said to Jackson and presumably whoever else was within hearing. “Did she give you the ‘What are your intentions?’ speech?”

  “As a matter of fact she did.”

  “You say you knew her eleven years ago. How did you know her then?”

  “I’m a game warden. We met the summer after she graduated from high school.”

  Cord’s tone was steely as he said, “You’re the game warden. Do you have any idea how much upheaval you caused coming around the house like you did? We were away at college at the time, but when we called home, we heard all about how much you upset Veronica. And they said you were old enough to be her father. That makes you an old man now. What the hell are you doing messing with a girl Veronica’s age? If you hurt my little sister I swear by all that’s holy—”

  “Hold on a minute. I went to her house twice. Once to answer a call about an illegally trapped eagle and a second time in answer to her follow-up call about the same eagle. If you weren’t there, how do you know what happened?”

  “I heard about it from my brothers, Jesse and Barry, and from Mom and Dad, and Addison. You don’t understand, McDaniel. Veronica is really reclusive and emotional. She gets her feelings hurt easily—”

  “Did you ever hear her side of it? Judging by her account of that same visit, it was your brothers and their friends who were the ones dealing out all the hurt. And I’m twelve years older than your sister, Cord. That was the only reason I walked away from her eleven years ago, because I thought that was too big an age gap. She’s twenty-nine now and twelve years means nothing, so you just be careful with the insults—”

  “Phil and Gordon told me you were old enough to be her father—”

  “Only if I fathered her at the age of eleven. I was thirty when I met her.”

  “Oh. Well, shit.”

  “Cord, I mean no disrespect when I say this, but all is not as it seems in your family. Did you know that Veronica has a history of being bullied?”

  “I knew there were a few times at school. But what does that have to do with—”

  “I’m talking about within your family, and your family friends. I think you need to confront Phil and Gordon, and get the full story from your brothers, and your damned snotty sister, Addison.”

  Cord snorted into the phone. “Hey, Jackson, Game Warden thinks Addison is snotty.”

  Over the connection, Travis thought he heard a wry voice say, “He doesn’t know the half of it.”

  Cord said, “Why would she think she was bullied at home?” In his voice as he asked was a trace of hurt—and maybe remorse.

  “Do you recall her ever standing up for herself when she was picked on?”

  There was a long pause. “That was pretty difficult for her. She was more likely to withdraw. That’s why they pushed her, I think, to get her to stand up for herself.”

  “Their strategy didn’t work and it’s affecting her even now. It doesn’t sound to me like she learned how to stand up to bullies. She withdraws. That’s why she’s successful online. When she needs to withdraw she can do it more easily than she could face-to-face.”

  “We tried to get them to stop, once we realized how it hurt her. There’s five years difference between us so she was still pretty young when we went to college. Jesse and Barry were little shits when they were teenagers.”

  “Judging by what she’s told us, little has changed.”

  “We took them aside before we left for school and told them that shit had to stop. Addison was more difficult. She never listened very well, the little snot.”

  “When was the last time you saw her for the holidays?”

  An even longer pause that time. “Last time we saw her at Christmas was when we barged in on her at her apartment for Christmas. She was working. She works a lot.”

  “When was the last time she went home for Christmas?”

  “Far as I know, her last Christmas at home was the year before she went off college. But we thought she was always working and just too busy to come home.”

  “She lives in Billings. Your family ranch is less than an hour from there. It’s not like she had to travel cross country.”

  There was an exchange of voices on the other end and a different male voice came on the line. “This is Jackson Benedict. So, you’re telling us that Veronica has been bullied all this time? And that she doesn’t want anything to do with her family, because that’s bullshit. We love Veronica, and we tried to get them to
stop. We thought they did. She’s always been one to hide her feelings. When we call her, getting her to open up is still hard sometimes. She’s always busy with one deadline or another.”

  Travis chuckled. That sounded like Veronica. Keeping busy enough so there was little time for a life.

  “Veronica told us that you love her and we believe her, and it was obvious she thinks the world of you two. The rest of your family, however, doesn’t know the first damn thing about being a family. They were bullying on her to get her toughen up when they should’ve been defending her, starting with those two sons of bitches, Phil and Gordon. I swear if I ever meet them face-to-face—”

  “Eh, they’re both dickheads. We already knew that.”

  “Did you know those dickheads backed her into a corner at home on a regular basis, poking at her, teasing her for liking me, for being full-figured, for being creative? They bought into your family’s stupid dynamic and victimized her to the point where she couldn’t defend herself.”

  “Damn it! No! See what I mean? Shit, just once I wish she’d called and told us. We’d have been home in a heartbeat dealing with those little shits, all four of them. All we ever heard was their side. Why didn’t she tell us?”

  “I don’t know, Jackson. Maybe she was already used to taking it? Maybe she thought she deserved it or that it would only get worse? If you were busy with school, maybe she didn’t want to worry you. She’s pretty strong.”

  “I wish she’d said something. But yeah, Mom and Dad had a ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ philosophy. I guess it’s clear they went overboard.”